Archives for June 2020

Hey Sweetie,
Had a good night sleep, then after I got up I immediately started to pack for my departure tomorrow. There’s a storm front due at around noon and I wanted to make sure everything was done before then. I’m obviously getting more efficient in m packing, because it didn’t seem to take much time for me to put everything away. I did every scrap of laundry I could find while I have electric, since I will only have my generator and the solar panel at the next couple of campgrounds, which should be an interesting experiment, to see how much energy I can save when I don’t have a dialysis machine to run every other day. Of course, there’s rain the in forecast for the area for the next few days, so without sunshine I’ll be using my generator more. Like I said, a good experiment, a good chance to see exactly what my energy conservation will be like. Once I got everything packed, I had breakfast and did a few chores before the rain came in, so I literally spent the day binge-watching DS9, then one so-so movie before shower and bed. So a nice quiet day, much quieter than any packing day I can remember. By the time the rain came, the place was mostly empty, and was completely empty by the time I went outside again. No earplugs necessary tonight! So I’m off! Good night, my love!

Hiya Darlin’,
While I had all good intentions to go riding today, I never made it. As you know, I filed a complaint with the state licensing bureau about that terrible realtor, and yesterday I received the realtor’s response to my complaint. Not surprisingly, it was filled with more lies. I don’t understand it, I have written documentation that proves he’s lying, but he still lies! Anyway, I was compelled to write a rebuttal, which took a lot longer than I expected, and by the time I finished, it was after 3:30. Since I had arranged to pick up hay at 5:00 today, it was too late to go riding. I’m going tomorrow for sure, though! I drive the 25 minutes to they hay farm and picked up 8 nice bales at $4.50 a bale, which will be enough to get me well into my next stop. After unloading the hay, mostly into the first stall and the rest under the gooseneck, Lola and I walked down to the lake and played fetch for a while. We were joined by a young mother, her little boy, and a little brown puppy about 12 weeks old, who kept trying to play with Lola, who ignored her, because she was too focused on playing fetch. They eventually left, and Lola and I walked back up to the trailer. Flash has been doing a Houdini on me lately, somehow he keeps getting off his highline and his anchor, so I had to do some work on that to make sure he stays put. Not that he goes very far, but I had to solve it before the weekend when this place is bound to get crowded again. A few campers came in today, mostly without horses, and I expect that trend to continue, not really looking forward to the crowds. Anyway, took an early shower, watched one DS9, now I’m ready for bed. I have to get my body clock adjusted, this going to bed right after the sun goes down makes me feel like I’m 4 years old going and it’s only 7:00 or something. Hard to live by the creed Early to Bed, Early to Rise with this kind of schedule! But I’m determined to at least get into bed earlier, even if I end up reading half the night, which is what I’ve been doing lately. Crazy! But, off I go! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Baby,
Had a hard time getting to sleep last night (probably because I was so static all day yesterday), so was a bit lazy when I got up this morning. After chores and breakfast I finally mustered enough energy to run down to a hardware store to get the screws I needed to make the repair on the exterior panel of the trailer that’s been bulging. Got back and did my best to put them on, but could only get about half of them done because it was bulging so badly and I couldn’t get enough leverage standing on a ladder to put enough weight behind it to get the screws in, then they were rounding out so quickly, which just made things worse. Randy at Harmar said if I can’t get it done myself, he’d be willing to let one of his guys do it when I pass through that area in a couple weeks. I’ll keep trying, maybe someplace where I can get a picnic table close enough to manage it, but we’ll see. I also put some sealant around all the windows, just as a precaution, so now all I have left to do is the roof, no hurry since I did that last year, but I do need to check on it to make sure there are no leaks, particularly where that panel buckled. Meanwhile, Lola escaped for a while when I was busy working, and when she didn’t come back in a reasonable time I went looking forward, turns out someone had “found” her and the DNR guy was driving around with her in the passenger seat. I was near the lake when they passed by and I flagged them down. If only people would stop detaining her, she’d come home in her own good time, and a lot quicker! Oh well, I know they mean well. Anyway, that was pretty much the extent of my day. I’ve found some hay on Marketplace about 10 miles away, I’ll be getting some tomorrow, and Flash’s foot seems fine now, I’m going to take him out in the morning and see how it goes. Watched a rather fun mystery movie with Daniel Craig (with an indeterminate Southern accent), Christopher Plummer and an all-star case on Prime called Knives Out, done rather Agatha Christie, put them all in a room and reveal the murderer sort of style. But now I’m ready for my shower and bed, and hope that I can get to sleep earlier than last night! Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetheart!
A much quieter night, a good night sleep, and a beautiful morning to wake up to today. I didn’t want to ride Apollo two days in a row, so I decided to go through the mail I got last week and get caught up on my bookkeeping, pretty boring, but it took up most of the day. I talked to Jeff, and it seems I did leave the GoDogGo machine at his place, on top of his A/C unit, and it’s been sitting out there the whole time. He thought it was one of the bad ones, but I’m sure it was the new one. Of course, after sitting outside for two months, chances are it’s going to need some repairs anyway. He said he plugged it in and it didn’t work, but it needed a new sensor any, plus if it got too wet that would affect it. I’ll have to rebuilt it probably when I get back down there. At least I know where it went! Lola and I walked down to the lake and did fetch for awhile, I let the horses graze on the grass a bit, gave them wormer, and settled down for the evening. Couldn’t get Netflix for some reason, so I ended up playing backgammon, which I downloaded, and, I’m sorry to say, am starting to get addicted to. I got an answer from Harmar, and they said they’ve been actually screwing the aluminum panels on these days, and told me exactly what kind of screws I need, so I may be taking a ride out to the hardware store tomorrow. I’d like to get that done before this dry spell ends. Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful day. I’m actually having to think up things to do now, instead of having a list so long I thought I’d never get to the end. A few jobs hanging, but nothing critical. Never thought I’d see the day! Anyway, time for shower and bed! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Sweetheart!
Once again, weekends at the park turned into a noise fest, one of the worst I’ve experienced since the 4th of July in New York, when it was packed but we were the only ones with horses. Right across from me I have tenters with lots of kids, who keep coming over wanting to pet the horses (you know I’m a sucker for that!), but at least their not yelling at each other all day. I decided, though, to stick around camp today, just to keep an eye on things, it’s so busy and I have so much stuff laying around. All day, more and more people joined the group across the road, now there’s like four cars and half a dozen tents, despite a sign out front that says one vehicle per campsite and provides a parking lot for the rest. The worst was around 4:00 someone showed up and turned their truck radio on full blast, with awful modern “rock” I guess you’d call it. I had to go ask them to turn it down, it was making my teeth shake! They turned it down some, but it kept increasing gradually as the day went on. I truly don’t understand why people come out to a natural environment of peace and quiet and then want to get as noisy as they possibly can! Much less inflicting their choice of music on others! I’m looking forward to more primitive, horse-only camping, it’s always the non-horse people that make all the noise! So I spent the day updating the Facebook page with all the horse camps since Jefferson Lake in Ohio last year, where I left off. I got it up to date now. I hate to say it, but I even felt compelled to write a pretty scathing review on that awful Double J at Mammoth Cave, I just wouldn’t want anyone else to make plans there and have them turn out to be terrible because they didn’t know. Three days of wasted time and money, not to mention how it ruined my plans for our wedding anniversary. Anyway, water under the bridge, as you’d say! Flash’s ankle seems to be a little better, but he’s still really favoring it, so I think I’ll just let him rest some more. I put them on anchors so they could graze, fortunately the other campsites on my side of the road are mostly empty so they have room. Of course, within an hour or so of grazing, they ended up standing right by the highline anyway! Overall it was a pretty relaxing day, though. I resisted the urge to do some work on the trailer, convinced myself I could wait until either tomorrow or next week, nothing urgent, so all my work was on the computer, nothing physical. It’s almost 9:30 and it’s still light outside, which drives me crazy! I’ll be glad to get back in Central time! So even though it seems early, I’m ready for my shower and bed and another good night sleep with my earplugs! Good night, baby! Love you!

Hey Baby!
Got up a bit early this morning, and got on the road to do some shopping as soon as the chores and breakfast were done. I headed northwest to a town called Salem, which looked oddly familiar, I think we must have driven through there another time. Anyway, I went to the Walmart because it was the only one with a mosquito plant in stock. My old one died, again. I grabbed it first thing, did the rest of my shopping, then skipped over to the Tractor Supply because I was low on Flash’s food, and, of course, this is the only store in the area that DOESN’T carry the Nutrena Perform. They stock the hard-to-find Balancer (which I had already stocked up on), but not the Perform, so I had to run down to Sellersburg SOUTH of Deam Lake in order to get it. It wasn’t really that far so it was no big deal, it just took longer than I expected. I bought one of those ball launchers, the ones that look like an air gun but it works on a spring, since I don’t have the GoDogGo anymore, wherever that is, so I played with Lola for a bit. Once I wore her out with that, I got a hankering to get on the lake, so I inflated my kayak, put it in the back of the truck and headed to the boat launch. I didn’t want to drag it on the rough ground, so I managed to put it on my head African-style and take it down to the lake. It’s a pretty small lake, you can pretty much see the whole thing at once, and it was a nice time. I headed north against the wind until I reach a spot where the tops of the dead trees were still sticking out of the water, then turned around and just let myself drift slowly all the way back down, taking in some sun, saving a strange-looking bug from the water, which I put in the grass when I got back to the launch area, and generally relaxing, would you believe! It was so peaceful, as only electric motors are allowed so it was pretty quiet. There were a few fishermen, but mostly it was folks on all kinds of human-powered vessels, like paddle boards (where the paddler stands up like on a surfboard), paddle boats (where they pump their feet like on a bicycle), a lot of one and two-man kayaks, and even an inflatable or two like mine. As I was heading back to the boat ramp, though, it was getting busier, as was the campground by the time I got back. I’m glad I got to see what this place looks like during the week, because now it’s become utter chaos. It’s very busy, and evidently they use the horse camp area as overflow, because though every site is almost full, most don’t have horses, but they do have lots of kids. I mean, LOTS of kids! Lola will have a field day tomorrow if I don’t keep an eye on her! A lot of small campers and tenters, so I expect it won’t be a very quiet night (thank goodness I bought a new supply of earplugs!) I did a load of laundry this morning, so I have fresh sheets for the bed, so now I’m off to take my shower and get into bed early. Love you, darlin’! Good night!